Newcastle Switch To New Goalkeeper Target – To Bid €15M

Rafa Benitez is keen to bring in a new first choice goalkeeper this summer, as he probably offloads both Karl Darlow and Tim Krul and there’s news in France Football today that Newcastle are close to making an offer of €15M for the French U21 International.

The report is that Rafa Benitez has followed the progress of the player since the Frenchman’s time at Villarreal in season 2015-2016, when he played 37 times on loan for the Spanish club and played extremely well.

24 year-old Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper Alphonse Areola The news is that Areola is now Newcastle’s number one goalkeeper target and Rafa is considering submitting a €15M (£13.3M) bid for the player, who has played for all the French youth sides from U16 through U21.

The 24-year-old Frenchman played 27 times for the PSG first team last season and he is said to be a very calm goalkeeper who is good in the air, commands his box and an excellent shot-stopper.

Alphonse Areola also has first class leadership skills – always something that Rafa seems to look for in players he wants to sign for Newcastle.

Areola was born in Paris and joined his home town club back in 2006 as a 13 year-old and has been there ever since.

He’s had season long loan spells at Lens (2013-1024 – 36 appearances), Bastia (2014-2015 – 39 appearances) and Villarreal (2015-2016 – 37 appearances) so he has already played 141 first team games in total.

He seems like a very good young goalkeeper who stands 6ft 3ins tall and could do very well in the Premier League.

I think using words like ‘sombre’ to describe our manager, who hasn’t given any interviews since returning(only last Monday may I remind you), when most fans are in the ”panicking because of lack of signings” stage – it feeds the fire- causes more uncertainty between fans, which doesn’t help anything. And it also coincides with Raffas’ odds being slashed in the ”next manager to leave/get the sack” race.

It does nothing to help lift the mood of the fans pushing out things like that…..

Then again, maybe your right… Im doing exactly as you said Giimps and discussing… – Ed, you sneaky devil, you got me!

DicBDoonToon – Another contributing factor is probably Ed is undergoing chemo at the moment. I can tell you from personal experience some days you feel fine and other days you feel like sh*t which tends to affect your mood.

Martoon The Italian media this morning is full of storries about DiLaunrentiis and Reina kissing and making up. Lots of papal references to white smoke which in Italian football journalese means a contract has been signed 🙁

Football blogs are a place where debates are most fiercely contested amongst members as we will all see things differently. But as Edds home page suggests it’s about having respect for one another’s view points however varied. If somebody has a negative viewpoint.. then debate it. If someone is forever an optimist and can’t see the wood for the trees… Then debate it to. I just don’t get why it gets so personal because in the real world if we were all sat in a pub having a debate it wouldn’t result to the insults that go out on here.

That would work. 80 mio. Even if it’s 100. We could recoup more than half of it by selling : darlow, Krul, gamez, Lazaar, diame, colback, saviet, de jong, mitro, Murphy, haidara, Hanley, good, Rivi. Whether we can sell all of them is yet remain to be seen, but Krul, darlow, colback, mitro, Murphy, Hanley would bring in 40 minimum.

If you look at the majority of PL deals, the big money us being spent by the big 6 which is inflating fees.

City, Man Utd, Everton have all spent 100 million plus. Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have all spent over 40 million on an individual player.

If you look at the majority of the rest, not much has been spent at all yet. Stoke, Watford, Southampton, Palace, Brighton, West Ham, WBA and ourselves have all spent less than 15 million in total so far.

No need to panic at all. In my opinion, under the current management/coaching team, we have a squad good enough to survive reasonably easily.

I don’t think so. They both have only 1 year left on their contract. Gibbs doesn’t play, Wilshire also. He’s been injured for so long, Wenger can’t trust him to play regularly – arsenal can’t rely on him considering they’re playing to win the league. We can,especially with rafa. I think there’s a chance to get the both on the cheap. It’s a world cup season and they both need first team football.

That could be a problem, but also an advantage. To move his life around, newcastle seems perfect. Moving away from London up north, where there’s great support, and a top manager. Plus he would be cheap.

Nightfall – you have sold half our squad and bought 5 players – I dont think that would work out too well even though i do agree with the suggested players. If we could even get 3 of them it would be pleasing!

League Placement

health update

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in February 2017 and completed four months of chemotherapy in late July and will continue to have hormone treatment.

The cancer spread in the bones, but after having a number of CATscans last Friday the cancer has been stabilized and as of April 24th, 2018 it has not spread further.

There is no cure for Stage 4 cancer so I will continue to have CATscans and bone scans about every four months to check on the cancer.

It is as it is - I will do my best under the circumstances - it's another challenge.

Ed Harrison

Comments

The purpose of the comments is to allow Newcastle United fans and others to express their views on the news of the day concerning the Newcastle United Football Club.

We'd ask that you be civil towards other readers and refrain from obscene language and any comments on religion, ethnic groups or politics.

Let's make this work - and let's help the Newcastle United Football Club become great again.

Ed Harrison

Kacper Tylenda Website Designer

One of our avid readers Kacper Tylenda from Poland was the person who came in during April, 2017 and redesigned this web-site from top to bottom.

We think he did a fantastic job to modernize the site with the roll-out on Thursday May 18th surprisingly smooth.

I am so appreciative of his help.

Kacper is starting his own business in web-design so if you want a website built or know of people who want to redo their sites in any way – here’s his portfolio.

football club

It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.